Punxsutawney!

My friend Alyssa and I decided that though we have thought about it and even attempted once to go experience the groundhog festivities, we finally realized that it is not worth it, to wake up at the crack of dawn, trek up a hill, and stand in the cold with our children for hours (it is really cold in February), just to find out that there will be six more weeks of winter!  However, Punxstawney was still something we wanted to see. So on Monday we packed up the kids and headed to Punxstawney.  Other than Groundhog Phil and Gobbler's Knob there is not much to see in Punxstawney, so this was a quick day trip!  It was fun and the weather was pretty good!  We went to Groundhog Phil's burrow and saw him sleeping, he did briefly wake up to eat and Lucas was able to see him.  We drove up to Gobbler's knob took pictures and called it good!  They did have several of these Groundhog statutes around town, they were pretty cute.  Lucas seemed to enjoy it!

 

Fall

The other day I was driving home and I looked around and realized that the leaves where changing and we are in the fall season.  It has been raining so much, and I have been busy I haven't been able to appreciate the fall season.  I haven't even baked one pumpkin thing yet!  Wait, I did make creamy pumpkin soup the other day! But other than that nothing, I have to fix this, and since this week the weather is looking warmer and better, I think Lucas and I will start enjoying the fall!  We're going to need to bake something with pumpkin in it and take a walk to look at the leaves changing colors!  Were also going together as a family to a high school football game and picking our pumpkin this week, what is more fall-ish than that!

Conference Weekend!

We didn't do too much the weekend before last, because it was conference weekend!  We did have brunch with some friends, it was pretty fun, and we had plenty of yummy muffins!  I bought M&M's for our conference bingo, which has been tradition, but we never got around to getting the cards out and didn't even open up the M&M's till the last session.  Though I still felt like we had plenty of sweets this past weekend!  We watched all four sessions of conference, though I am not sure I could tell you what they said, Lucas was not terrible, he just wanted to be right in your face and talk the entire time.  The only couple of hours that we got to really listen was while he was taking nap.  I am just going to have to read them instead!

Fall Festival!

 This past weekend we took Lucas to the fall festival they have down town!  I was really looking forward to this and was bummed when the weather didn't hold out for us!  It was really cold, but didn't really rain, so I guess that is a plus, and it could have been worse!  Lucas picked out and decorated a pumpkin!  Rode the carousel, loved it, and was quick to find where the places where people we handing out candy! Since the festival he has been obsessed with pumpkins anytime we see pumpkins he is quick to point them out!  Every time we take Craig to work, we drive past bins of pumpkins Lucas is sure to let us know when we pass them!  I am excited to take him to the pumpkin patch this week to pick out our pumpkin for dinner!

 

All dressed up and ready to go, but wait where is the snow!

As were heading into fall I quickly realized that my child doesn't have shoes to wear, not one pair!  It has been raining a lot lately so I have been able to get away with letting him wear his rain boots, but I knew this would last too much longer, but on second thought we are in Pennsylvania, where I feel like it is always raining!  Lucas also doesn't have any snow gear, and I know when it snows (if it snows this year) Lucas is going to want to go play!  So I went to a consignment sale last week, right when they opened, because things can get pretty crazy.  I was on a mission!  And I am happy to report I had great success!  Lucas now has a nice winter coat, snow pants (three pairs to be exact, because I wasn't sure which would fit him best, because size means nothing, every brand varies), gloves, and boots!  I also found him some shoes, two pair of shoes, in really good condition!  Anyway I dressed Lucas all up in his winter gear to make sure it would fit!  He looked like an Eskimo!  I  felt bad dressing him all up and then there wasn't any snow for him to play in!  Oh well! He was a very good sport about it all!  (I don't know why he looks so tired, I must have just taken the picture at the wrong time.)

mmmmmmmm.... Apple Season!

The trip to the Apple Orchard was a prelude to a week of apples!  At the beginning of the week I learned how to can apple pie filling.  It was very yummy pie filling, though my friend uses it for apple crisp, clever idea.  I don't think Craig would mind having apple pie filling in crisp form!  My friend said her husband called it, "liquid gold".  After having a taste I would have to agree, it was darn good!
Later, during the week after our field trip, we load up on apples, and canned applesauce!  Lots of jars of applesauce!  Alyssa and I are now in such a groove when were canning that by the afternoon we had canned my bushel of apples and her bushel of apples!  We now have several jars of applesauce to eat and bake with this year!  I still need to finish out apple season with the making of apple crisp, this might be done a few times before were out of the season.  I think I am going to try caramel apples, which I haven't been a big fan of in the past, but I think Lucas would enjoy it and the apples we get are sooooo good that adding caramel, you just can't you go wrong!

Apple Orchard!

A couple of weeks ago Lucas and I went with playgroup on our annual field trip to the Apple Orchard!  Before we went to the apple orchard, I took Lucas to story time at the library and ironically enough the theme for story time was apples!  It was really neat and made for a very themed day!  Unfortunately, it had been pretty rainy (surprise, surprise!) so it was very muddy.  The rain did hold off briefly, so we could take our wagon trip through the apple orchard.  Lucas didn't want to sit by me, he wanted to sit by his friend, which is the reason why there are no pictures of Lucas on the wagon ride, hold on... now that I think of it there might be one picture.  After the wagon ride they took us on a tour of how they clean the apples and store them, which includes a trip into the refrigerator!  Of course the best part of the whole experience is that they give us a bag of apples and some apple cider!  Which makes this trip pretty fun and yummy!